Book Club Blog

So I finally finished reading this book...…I don’t think will be buying the sequel I had a good enough dose already.

So Rachel sleeps with Dex her best friend’s fiancé…..as if that is not enough she catches feelings and starts having a secret affair. All the while her best friend Darcy is oblivious of the whole thing and the Dex is playing along telling Rachel he can’t live without her blah blah….gosh talk about scary.

This book freaked me out – is this what human beings can do? that a girl can sleep or be sleeping with her best friends fiancé and not feel guilty in the least!....

Ok so….. they carry on with their secret affair only for Darcy to confess that she was having an affair and is now pregnant…for a guy that Rachel was kinda sorta dating, this same guy happens to be good friends with Dex…..

talk about feeling sorry for best friend Darcy only to find out that she was doing her own undercover stunts. LOL…

and this best friend Darcy still has the nerve to freak out when she catches her fiancé Dex at Rachels house . All in all everyone ended up with who they wanted to be with……

I’m surprised there is no karma backlash here.. this happy ending is too good to be true. Moral of the story. Watch your man

Ok. I’ve not done a book review as yet and I’m starting to feel guilty. I’ve finally managed to put down the sudoku books, and resume reading. The transition was difficult though, and made worse by the fact that the first thing I saw upon opening the book was a long list of notable (and un-notable) names, all basically saying Read this book – it’s great!’, or ‘You won’t be able to put it down!’, or ‘The author is a master of suspense’. Should I take this as a sign to buy the book? Enough of that for now though.

The book I’m currently massacring is The Sigma Protocol by Robert Ludlum. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s also the author of The Bourne Identity and Supremacy. It took me 4 weeks to get started on reading this book – that’s how disinterested I was. But a friend had been kind enough to lend it to me, and I didn’t want to return it without at least skimming through it. Though I’ve always been an avid fan of books and movies in the thriller genre with a central theme of espionage, this book has helped me realise a sad truth: I’m tired of government conspiracies. The world has only just begun recovering from an overdose of the Da Vinci code so I personally wouldn’t mind if I didn’t see or read anything conspiracy related for a long time.

I reluctantly opened the book and began reading (as bedtime material). Looked like my assumptions were right. From what I’ve read so far, the book revolves around some rich kid – Ben Hartman. Of course, he didn’t ‘choose’ to be rich – he didn’t even want it, but he had to perform his duties as a son when his twin brother died, and also because he had promised his mother on her deathbed (and you know no one ever lies to their parents!). Ben doesn’t like being rich – no, he’d rather work with inner-city children (who might pull a knife on him without warning). Oh pur-lease – Is this some kind of ploy to convince the reader that Ben is actually a normal person trapped in a spoilt rich kid’s body? That is Ludlum’s first mistake. Ben hates the trappings of a rich life, yet he’s chosen to stay at the most expensive hotel (in order to schmooze his stakeholders). Anyways, a brief synopsis:

Ben Hartman is concluding a business trip in Switzerland when he sees an old school friend he hasn’t seen in 15 years. Far from having a friendly reunion, the old school friend pops out a gun and shoots at him. Ben runs into a shopping mall (he’s extremely athletic, dontyouknow), and the now-former friend follows, unsuccessfully shooting at him and killing a lot of innocent shoppers instead. Ben eventually manages to kill this friend, and, in shock, goes off to look for the police (who believe he’s the killer, of course). He takes them back to see the body, but by the time they get there, wa-hey, the body’s gone, along with any trace of a fight. Predictably, the Walther PPK used in the shooting is found in his luggage. Some massive government conspiracy which will no doubt be revealed in the last chapter.

Of course, such a book isn’t complete with only one central character, so a woman is thrown in – she will no doubt prove to be Ben’s love interest (I’ll let you know if that is indeed the case as I progress into the book). Now, I am sure that this is going to be a typical book where some male author decides he knows how a woman would feel and act. The clueless author makes her into some kind of man – devoid of emotions, a loner, and full of psychological problems which she’s never ready to deal with. But of course these unstable women allow the lead male character into their lives. I suspect this is how the author is clueless when it comes to women.

The woman, Anna Navarro, is a government agent, works for a sexist boss, and has to put up with a lot of crap from him because she’s rejected his advances. Thinking it will harm her career chances, the misogynistic boss proclaims her to be ‘not much of a team player’, but this sparks the interest of a top-level government agency. The old stuffy powerful boss of this agency (known as The Ghost), summons her, informing her of some high-level secret organisation that was formed even before the CIA. Apparently, all its members have been found dead, supposedly by accident. He wants her to ascertain whether their deaths were really accidental. She begins investigating, but is soon dragged off, the case, attacked, and declared rogue (Why, we don’t as yet know).

Why do I sound so sceptical? Virtually all of Robert Ludlum’s books have a similar theme. Check out some of the titles:

The Janson Directive
The Aquitaine Progression
The Holcroft Covenant
The Chancellor Manuscript
The Matlock Paper
The Prometheus Deception
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Cassandra Compact

Can ya begin to see a pattern here?
Furthermore, I fail to be impressed by promises of shock and intrigue. What next can the government conspire about? Killing babies and eating their limbs? What horrible scenarios and conspiracies have we not seen in books, movies, and real life, no doubt?

Till the next instalment - has anyone read this?

I just finished reading Purple Hibiscus by Chiamanda N. Adichie And I adored it. It is the story of a fanatical catholic father who takes tradition and religion somewhere hellish told through the eyes of a 14 year old girl. Many of us can relate to the sick feeling at the end of the term, walking him knowing you were "dead" because you didn't come first, but throw in a father who pours freshly boiled water over your feet to show you what hell feels like, should you ever feel inclined to sin, and you have a better idea of the story of the book. Somehow, in all this horror, Adichie was able to mix in first love, and what true family felt like.
I am a yoruba girl, and I truly enjoyed all the Igbo culture that was peppered in as one would with fresh suya [plenty, but never too much] .

The story is a coming of age tale of a young girl who slowly sees the dysfunction in her family through the beauty of her cousins family. She lives with her overbearing catholic father who makes his entire family miserable under the burden of schedules and order while running a newspaper that still manages to tell the truth while democracy and free speech in Nigeria are coming to a standstill. Kambili and her brother are allowed to visit their cousins and finally see what family should be like.

Purple Hibiscus is a beautifully written book, and I remember having a very strong desire to meet Adichie [the author] after I was done. To me, that is what good writing does to you.

I am sure I complained about this guy's previous book sometime in April... Thieves' Paradise... You know what my main problem was...? The sex scenes... the way he described sex between a man and a woman... I was thinking, "Where is this man from?"

Anyway, back to "Genevieve", pronounced a different way in this book - In the author's words "Not JEH-neh-veev but ZHAWN-vee-EHV"

I am only on page 103 but I have a couple of lines from different sex scenes in this book:

• I licked her like I was on trial and her orgasm, or lack of, was the verdict.
• She's not as wet as a river but her vagina isn't a desert.

I know, I know, It seems like I am reading a porn-like book right? Well I am not, there is a story amongst all the sex...LOL!!! Serious though, I am not one to read African American books, this is like the 4th I am reading and I am yet to be impressed.

You know what? I will share more of the interesting sentences as I go along.